A movie gets torched, yet it is bereft of ashes. This is true about every remake that is meted out to a weary audience. Jokes are made, lines are drawn, but the movie is still released. And with an estimated $50 Million Budget, why wouldn’t it be?
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The internet exploded when it got a sneak peek at the upcoming “reimagining” of The Crow, and the outcry from fans was enough to wake the dead. Director Rupert Sanders has decided to take the look of Eric Draven (played by Bill Skarsgård) in a different direction from what was made iconic by the late actor Brandon Lee.
When the images were released by Vanity Fair, the first thing people noticed was how much of a resemblance the reimagined Draven bears to The Joker (played by Jared Leto) in the 2016 movie Suicide Squad. His appearance has also been compared to that of a street mime who has an addiction to methamphetamine, which is only made worse by the weird chest tattoos.
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With a get-up like his, there is no denying that he possibly could’ve just been brought back to life to steal catalytic converters from a few cars around the neighborhood. But the most resounding grievance has been that ‘Breaking Bad’ Skarsgård doesn’t look like Brandon Lee’s interpretation of the character…and this is alright!
Cover up the tattoos, especially the chest area, and it’s not too far off from creator James O’Barr’s original design from the 1989 Caliper Press comic. The series would only go on for a year before ending, and Draven was finally laid to rest.
Even though he was temporarily resurrected for a six-issue team-up series through London Night Studios and a ten-issue series by Image Comics with a reimagined plot. However, he was not the only person brought back by the supernatural Corvus.
Without mentioning the movie sequels (and you are welcome), one of the others to be resurrected is Michael Korby. Don’t know who that is? Allow me to tell you the story.
He and his wife were murdered in a carjacking, and he revs his way through three issues of payback in The Crow: Wild Justice from Kitchen Sink Press (1996).
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Then in The Crow: Pestilence from IDW (2014), Salvador, a boxer from Juarez, refuses to take a dive in a fight for a drug cartel. In response, they murder him and his entire family.
Years later, Salvador is back on his feet above ground with a mind for revenge and redemption just like Draven and Korby. Except his punk mohawk look and combat boots don’t exactly match either of his predecessors.
In another case that kind of fits with the Latin motif, altar boy David Amadio and his girlfriend Sarah are murdered (sounds familiar, especially with that name) by a terrorist attack while vacationing in Rome.
He rises again to seek holy vengeance against the terrorists while trying to discover who orchestrated the attack in the four-issue mini The Crow: Memento Mori by Roberto Recchioni and IDW Publishing (2018).
There have been a total of 15 different incarnations of the character in the comic books alone. This does not include the eight novels or the three movies (and you are still welcome).
The point is that they also don’t look like Brandon Lee’s Eric Draven, and they don’t have to – just as Bill Skarsgård doesn’t have to either. It doesn’t necessarily mean Rupert Sanders’s take is going to be a terrible movie.
There is no replacing Lee, or his amazing performance, and that great movie will always exist. It would be a greater dishonor if Lionsgate had tried to replace him and the movie more overtly, or worse, tried to copy them instead (like those damned sequels).
That is something that would’ve been more unforgivable than a matching pair of nip-eyes. If the movies we love are remade, the way for them to live on is to never stop watching them. Releases underperform, executives are fired, people forget, but real art is forever.
NEXT: Report: The Crow Remake Has Derailed!